Gentrification, Neighborhood Change, and Population Health: a Systematic Review

Abstract

Despite a proliferation of research on neighborhood effects on health, how neighborhood economic development, in the form of gentrification, affects health and well-being in the U.S. is poorly understood, and no systematic assessment of the potential health impacts has been conducted. Further, we know little about whether health impacts differ for residents of neighborhoods undergoing gentrification versus urban development, or other forms of neighborhood socioeconomic ascent. We followed current guidelines for systematic reviews and present data on the study characteristics of the twenty-two empirical articles that met our inclusion criteria and were published on associations between gentrification, and similar but differently termed processes (e.g., urban regeneration, urban development, neighborhood upgrading), and health published between 2000 and 2018. Our results show that impacts on health vary by outcome assessed, exposure measurement, the larger context specific determinants of neighborhood change, and analysis decisions including which reference and treatment groups to examine. Studies of the health impacts of gentrification, urban development, and urban regeneration describe similar processes, and synthesis and comparison of their results helps bridge differing theoretical approaches to this emerging research. Our article helps to inform the debate on the impacts of gentrification and urban development for health and suggests that these neighborhood change processes likely have both detrimental and beneficial effects on health. Given the influence of place on health and the trend of increasing gentrification and urban development in many American cities, we discuss how future research can approach understanding and researching the impacts of these processes for population health.

Racial/ethnic segregation and health disparities: Future directions and opportunities

“…The discussion above is related to the concept of gentrification, which has received limited attention in the literature (Schnake‐Mahl, Jahn, Subramanian, Waters, & Arcaya, ). Racial residential segregation is closely related to intentional socioeconomic disinvestment from predominantly non‐white neighborhoods (Ellen & Steil, ), making these neighborhoods over‐representative of low‐income communities and hence eligible for gentrification in the long‐run.…”

Green Gentrification and Health: A Scoping Review

“…Three systematic reviews recently examined the research connecting gentrification and human health [8][9][10]. The authors of these reviews report that gentrification can impact a broad variety of health outcomes, ranging from physical to mental health, and that the directions of associations between gentrification and health are not consistent [8,9]. Yet, two reviews found that gentrification has worse health impacts for marginalized groups, such as Black, low-income, and elderly people, than for more privileged groups [8,10].…”

“…In the last few years, scholars and activists have expressed a growing interest in the links between green gentrification and health, or more broadly, whether and how green space is associated with health in neighborhoods that are gentrifying [21,23]. Although there have been at least three systematic reviews focusing on how gentrification (in general) impacts human health [8][9][10], to our knowledge, no review has focused specifically on the connections between green gentrification and health. We argue that examining whether green gentrification improves or aggravates the health of marginalized groups is key to informing urban greening initiatives in low-income and racially/ethnically diverse neighborhoods that are susceptible to gentrification.…”

High prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection among food delivery riders. A case study from Quito, Ecuador

“…The increased mobility of delivery workers, most of them driving bikes or motorcycles, and the high number of personal contacts put their health also at risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. While keeping their income, delivery workers are vulnerable because cannot rely on a stable income and are usually excluded from the labor and social protections systems offered to formal employees ( Apouey et al, 2020 ).…”